Scaly Leg Mites - Need Best / Easiest / Quickest Solution - Scaley

[chicknmania]

Castor oil works well. It's got properties in it that help. It's cheap too.

 

[Beekissed]

I second the castor oil....it can soothe the pain of a bad infestation, while also protecting against infection, promoting faster regrowth of healthy scale and also has insecticidal abilities. It's even better than NUStock and that's saying a lot.

 

[Math]

For you, the castor oil is more available, cheaper, and it left my bird's scales so supple, soft and fresh looking~even months later! I've had no recurrence of the scale mites since using it and their scales look like young bird's scales. Here's a pic of my rooster's feet last fall and they were treated with the homemade NS after this pic. It seemed to work for a bit but it didn't really...it came back and looked much worse than what you see here...the scales were hooved up, twisted to one side and gnarly looking. I didn't get to really see how much they had worsened until I washed off the residue of the NS. Then I changed plans on treatment, since I had been reading about castor oil. Here's the back of his legs a week or so after the castor oil...you can see fresh yellow scales growing and some lighter, older scales getting ready to slough. And his legs on 6/26/13...3 mo. later after the use of the castor oil..... And the front view..you can see here how thickened and twisted the scales had become from the mites, but what you can't see here is the scaliness, dryness and how darkened the scales were previously. I wish I had a pic of them now to show you....all that twisted, thick portion you see on the leg on the left in this pic is gone and his legs look brand new. No redness~just soft, golden and pretty! And 3 mo. after the castor oil treatment.... The castor oil treatment lasted, it worked in one treatment, it continues to keep his scales very shiny and new looking and I believe it helped him grow back his spurs that some ignorant person cut off of him. His spurs have grown a full half inch since this pic, but you can see how short they were in Oct. of last year, how much growth they had up to March of this year....6 months to gain 1/4 in..... and it only took 3 mo. to grow the additional 1/2 after the CO was applied in March. That's wonderful! I've since found that African American women are using castor oil treatments on their hair and are reporting up to 6 in. of growth on their hair, so the spur and scale growth on the bird is understandable to me now. Hope this helps! I'll try to get a pic of Toby's feet now and post it to this thread as a follow up on the castor oil benefits.

Thanks for all this information. I treated my roosters legs with castor oil. After a months his legs look much better and better.

 

[crazyfeathers]

I am treating my girls for SLM also, it is defiantly trial and error. My thought is if you find something that is effective, use it. Some individuals have strong opinions and can't keep an open mind. I used to be on BYC everyday but due to the "know it alls and opinionated individuals" I only occasionally visit this site. I've read all 62 pages of this thread unfortunately all of the good information could have been found in the first 5, the rest was one individual pushing their cure after saying some things work better than others for SLM. We all care about our fowl or we wouldn't be here searching for answers. Remedies such as kerosene and gasoline were used back in the day because there were no other alternatives, that is not the case now. I understand why some may try this route and its only because they read it worked, no need to criticize, we are all here to learn. Best of luck to everyone who is batteling SLM, hang in there and the only dumb question is the one that is not asked.

 

[grassfedchicken]

I am treating my girls for SLM also, it is defiantly trial and error. My thought is if you find something that is effective, use it. Some individuals have strong opinions and can't keep an open mind. I used to be on BYC everyday but due to the "know it alls and opinionated individuals" I only occasionally visit this site. I've read all 62 pages of this thread unfortunately all of the good information could have been found in the first 5, the rest was one individual pushing their cure after saying some things work better than others for SLM. We all care about our fowl or we wouldn't be here searching for answers. Remedies such as kerosene and gasoline were used back in the day because there were no other alternatives, that is not the case now. I understand why some may try this route and its only because they read it worked, no need to criticize, we are all here to learn. Best of luck to everyone who is batteling SLM, hang in there and the only dumb question is the one that is not asked.

know-it-alls suck. Truthfully I hate cleaning up after poopy animals and we have a good system to avoid it. mine have been mite free for many years. To me the key is free range nonconfinement. We rehab creatures big and small just by free ranging them. Confining the animals is the cause of most ills. Its almost impossible to clean an area of mites without wasting a ton of time doing gross things. To me chickens who are stuck in a wood coop are destined for mites. Never seen a raised scale in my flock ever. Use a metal wire enclosure for chickens at night with concrete floor and for roosting clean pvc poles if you don't want to clean mites forever. Can't lie I love castor oil tho it works awesomely to grow longer hair and lashes.

 

[chicknmania]

Quote:
I agree that free ranging helps but it is not a cure all..we've had some cases and our flock free ranges. They are all together inside when the weather is bad, of course. I think some individuals are more susceptible than others, and it is not true that if one bird gets it, they all will. I also agree that it's not necessary to attack everyone else just because one person has their own methods. It's always possible that someone might have better methods than yours, which is the whole point of these group conversations, right?

 

[KramAus]

I've had a breakout this recently and have been painfully going to the effort of catching all 30+ birds and giving them Ivomec. Have also been putting oil/vaseline on them at the same time but imo on these methods on their own simply don't work in completely eradicating them. It's a bloody annoying problem.

 

[Beekissed]

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[raewhitewolf]

I have to say the castor oil worked brilliantly!
My crazy fran was so much more comfortable allready the next day, she was almost back to her usual nutty self.
The scales came off, new ones grew. I see a couple of areas where I will need to do another application, but I am amazed at how well it worked.
It's so nice that it's very cheap and easy to find as well.
Thanks everyone for sharing

 

[Bukbuk Betty]

I have to say the castor oil worked brilliantly!
My crazy fran was so much more comfortable allready the next day, she was almost back to her usual nutty self.
The scales came off, new ones grew. I see a couple of areas where I will need to do another application, but I am amazed at how well it worked.
It's so nice that it's very cheap and easy to find as well.
Thanks everyone for sharing

Are you folks treating with the castor oil dipping them or painting it on? And are you using it straight-up or mixing with mineral oil, etc? I've been painting on mineral oil with a bit of tea treeabout once a week for the past few weeks and not seeing a whole lot of improvement. I'm reluctant to dip my booted birds because of the feathers being soaked, but also because painting is easy to do without extra help.

Aside from the castor oil, has anyone used DVL Dusting Powder for scaly leg mites, either in the coop or on the birds themselves? The can says it treats mites, lice, etc but I wasn't sure if/how one would use it for slm. As well I wondered if it was the kind of thing that soaks into their skin/system or just kills bugs via contact. Can anyone chime in on this? I may just contact the company itself, but asking here anyhow.